


Final Days

by TheUnicornFountain



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Genre: Angst, Blood, Death, Gen, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4076713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnicornFountain/pseuds/TheUnicornFountain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a companion piece to <em>Up All Night.</em> It covers what happened to the Hero of Time before the events of the aforementioned fanfiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Days

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I should share the other side of the story seeing how a few people enjoyed _Up All Night._ So here you go.
> 
> Feedback and kudos are appreciated, thank you!
> 
> Enjoy!

# Final Days

It was so _loud_ all of the time now.

Beneath a massive moon, Link watched the minutes, hours, and days slip by him, all filled with noise. The sun rose and fell far too quickly, and the moon grew closer by dawn. This wasn’t Hyrule. This was a much smaller, and thus far more condensed, country. A country on the verge of a carnival--and its own demise.

Link missed the quiet peace of Hyrule, as short-lived as it was. The longing grew to be so much he began to see old friends everywhere he turned. Each face was familiar, yet vastly unfamiliar. Even his own grew strange to him, so often he altered it or covered it up. He would look into a basin of water or even at his own shield and see a face both changed and unchanged.

This was all the King of Evil’s fault. He had sundered Hyrule’s peace and left the kingdom’s vestiges to rot. Link had bested him, but at the cost of never having another night of peaceful sleep again. Everything had started with a dream. What if the next one led him to another calamity? If only he could sleep soundly again… What he would give to not worry all the time…

There were days when Link passed through his allotted time to save this country with no semblance of conscious thought. Everything was the same as the set of three days that had come before, and he moved automatically. Other times he rushed every step, acutely aware of the minutes passing him by; the clock’s ticks coming through the loudest in his ringing ears.

When Link sought respite for the first time, he nearly ended this newest quest. A short nap in a local inn turned into a three-day sleep, and he woke up to a sky alight with fire. He felt the destruction on his heels as he was whipped away through time; swept along by the song he barely managed to play before everything burned around him. Sunlight replaced the flaming night, and chatter replaced the screams. He hunkered in a corner and didn’t move for an hour.

No older than ten, Link had seen a lifetime of terror, injury, and despair. He had the skills of an experienced young man, but a body incapable of replicating it. His memories of his time as an adult felt like figments of someone else’s dream. They filled half of his head, but had no substance. He couldn’t hold on to them when he needed stability the most.

He was going to crack soon. He couldn’t risk falling asleep again, nor could he go much longer without rest. There had to be something that could help him…

It was a mask, of all things, that gave Link his answer. He followed a lead to a curious shop in the west part of town, and there it was: the All-Night Mask. It was barely a mask at all--more holes than anything. A web of black formed the suggestion of a face and ears, and two wide eyes looked out from amongst the crisscrossing lines. Link handed over the payment with barely a look at the clerk. The mask felt as light as a feather against his face.

“Hey!” the clerk called. 

Link turned to look at him through the mask’s eyes, which cast a grey veil over everything.

“That mask is no toy for children!” the clerk warned. “It was once a torture device, I kid you not! People have been known to see things when they go so long without sleep while wearing it!”

Link frowned behind the mask and left the shop. The clerk was wrong. The mask swept away his exhaustion, but otherwise he didn’t even notice he was wearing it. He fell back through time to the first dawn in the three day cycle and approached his quest with a fresh face.

He soon noticed there were things the mask showed him that he couldn’t see without it. Within the grey veil were shadows that belonged to no person or creature in the world. They acted independently, and passed around or through the people and structures as if they were nothing but air. One even followed Link around; walking alongside him. It was his height, but vaguely formed and the lightest of grey in color.

Link found himself growing fond of this shadow. It was always there so long as he wore the mask, and it remembered him when he went back in time; something no one else in this doomed country did. And when he was forced to change his shape to continue his quest, it was a great relief to return to his own body and don the mask once more. The shadow was a constant he could lean on. And it grew more tangible as the days went by, over and over. Its color darkened to black, and its outline solidified. It changed to become a mirror image of Link. 

But who was Link, really? His shape changed to suit his needs. Could he call himself a Hylian anymore, all alone in this strange country? Could he call himself a Deku scrub, a Goron, or a Zora because he borrowed their forms? Was he all of them? None of them? These questions plagued Link in the quiet moments of his quest. He would hunker down and hug his chest while the shadow stood nearby. He wished it would speak.

Link didn’t understand how much he needed the mask until one day when a monster damaged it. It was only a nick, but there it was: a thin line of white against a thin, black line. Link fell back into time right then and there, hoping the reversal would fix the mask. It didn’t, and the world beyond his veiled eyes took a strange turn.

The shadows no longer moved with grace. They jerked and twisted, and sometimes moved as much as several yards in the span of half a second. Some of them walked torn in two; the legs moving forward with the upper body staggering behind through the air. In alarm, Link turned to his familiar shadow. It was still whole. Was it because it had grown so attached to him? 

Link’s exhaustion swept over him that instant, and he staggered to his hands and knees. His limbs shook, and a headache bloomed in his skull. He rested his forehead against the cool stone for relief, and in the last few seconds before his eyes closed, he saw his shadow standing over him, looking down. It had red eyes now.

A trembling in the earth dragged Link out of sleep, and he gained his feet in a flash when he recognized the red glow of the coming doom. He had slept too long. _Far_ too long. How? The mask was supposed to keep him awake. He reached up and felt along its familiar lines. His fingertip ran over the mar, and his stomach sank. 

But Link had no time to worry. Pieces of the moon were falling from the sky. What few people who remained in town were fleeing; screaming as they ran. Link saw a chunk of flaming stone crush a woman and child running hand-in-hand. He stared at the splash of blood until someone took hold of his arm and yanked him away.

It was his shadow. It was tangible now, although still dark as pitch, and it pulled Link away from the center of town at an inhuman speed. 

Shaking stone turned to cool, trembling grass, but the danger was far from over. A flaming rock struck the earth to Link’s right. He tried to turn away when he saw its shadow growing, but a piece flew off at impact and scraped across his right cheek. Embers and tongues of flame licked at his shirt and burned the skin beneath, and he tumbled over onto his back with a scream of pain.

The moon filled half the sky. The shadow blocked it off from view when its knees braced against the ground to either side of Link. Its weight settled on his chest. It had _weight_ now. And a strong grip. Its fingers hooked into Link’s mouth and pulled it open. The mask tore around his lips.

Link struggled and pawed at the shadow, and he tried to bite down on the probing fingers. The snap of his breaking jaw shocked him into stillness. The fingers filled his throat, followed by wrists; arms; a head. And the world’s dying roar filled Link’s ears. 

#

A hand reached towards him, and he flinched away, but it was warm when it fell upon his shoulder, and he stilled.

“What’s your name?” the red-haired man asked.


End file.
